The Right To Surf: A Fundamental Right?

A Prelude To My Discussion of the Issue of Internet (Pilfering) Filtering in the People’s Republic of China

I type the sub-title of this piece unthinkingly, and as I review it, I backtrack and chastise myself for putting in Pilfering instead of Filtering, which was really my original intent. Then I stop myself, maybe there is some truth with the initial word I used. In a sense, blocking some sites from user access in the Internet, as it is done in China, through content filtering, has a robbing effect on it as the term pilfering connotes.

In PublicInternational Law, countries may enter into a treaty and do whatever they want for as long as they do not violate a peremptory norm. Such is encapsulated by the Vienna Convention on Treaty Law by which such treaties are governed (and not contract law as some may erroneously surmise). These peremptory norms or Jus Cogens, deal with fundamental rules mainly concerning Human rights such as freedom from torture, slavery, genocide, among others. These are norms comprising customary international law that apply to States in general. They are deemed to be applicable even without the presence of a treaty with a certain State who may be alleged to violate it because they are assumed and recognized to be a legal obligation for all States.

But what about accessing any site one wants to in the Internet? Would that be a fundamental Human right, a customary norm that applies to all States, including China? Or would applying such, and compelling China to do so, would be an encroachment of another norm in customary international law, the right of State to sovereignty and freedom from interference?

Perhaps in tackling this issue of internet censorship in China, critics must look upon the treatment of the world in general regarding the right to access to information and freedom of expression. Furthermore, in clear and unequivocal terms, the international community must formally declare and state this as a peremptory norm or Jus Cogens, perhaps in a ruling or a convention ,that the world in general, adheres to, as a fundamental human right, one that they feel legally obligated to uphold in the same manner and regard as the freedom from slavery, for example. Without this, it would be infinitely hard to curtail China from curtailing their people’s rights in that regard.

I believe that the right to access to information such as in the Internet, must be regarded as Jus Cogens in general international law. This is in relation to the right to freedom of expression which most States in the world believes in and upholds. With the lack of information, how could expression be at its most free?

To inhibit the freedom to know, one robs from another a means to truly express himself, pilfers from another in doing so. Pilfer: to steal in small quantities (Webster’s Contemporary Dictionary). Yes, I used the right term earlier. Little by little, in blocking highly informative sites, the PRC is stealing slowly but surely from their peoples- basic freedoms that people in all corners of the globe are and should enjoy.